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The Tom Sawyer Principle (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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This Week's Quiz

Bulgaria, Northern Macedonia and Montenegro have withdrawn from the next Eurovision Song Contest because of the increased fees made necessary by the absence of Russia. Al-Jazeera.

1. How much do fees rise when fifty-two paying-participants becomes fifty-one?
2. What is the Gross National Product of a) Bulgaria b) Northern Macedonia and c) Montenegro?
3. What is your opinion of a news organisation unreflectively stating things that make no sense whatsoever?
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Mick Harper
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I've been trying to work out my antipathy to Rishi Sunak now I find I am to be ruled by him for at least the next couple of years. The best way to do this is to imagine he is called Richard Smith, a scion of the wealthy Southampton Smiths. He went to the nearest prestigious public school, Winchester, and then to Oxford. After a successful career in merchant banking, he went into politics via a safe seat in Yorkshire and, after a series of sideways lurches in the Parliamentary Conservative Party, became Chancellor of the Exchequer -- where he proved to be energetic. Before the efficacy of his policies could be judged, he became Prime Minister by general acclamation of Tory MP's.

There is no doubt that the source of my antipathy is racism.
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Wile E. Coyote


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The best way to do this is to imagine he is called Richard Smith,


Rishi means "sage" Sunak is "dog". So maybe this is your aversion to super intelligent canines.

Wile E. Coyote.
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Mick Harper
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When you get asked to head up the AEL by general acclamation, I'll let you know. Which reminds me, our recent AGM approved Brother Xi Jinping's proposal on term limits by general acclamation.

Could members send in properly notarised read-outs of their DNA heritage? For our records.
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Mick Harper
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If you noticed, the daily extended news programmes have gone from being all-but-exclusively devoted to British governmental goings-on to not mentioning them, in a few days. In a few weeks there will be a complete return to the status quo ante i.e.

* an ordinary British government doing ordinary things
* an ordinary British opposition doing ordinary things
* including an oppositional rump of the governing party led by by a semi-joke figure, often Jacob Rees-Mogg
* the main opposition parties will have a considerable lead in the opinion polls
* the markets will return to calm.

This is something to remember next time the tranquility of any mature liberal democracy is disturbed.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Boring technocrats like Rishi are popular with the main stream media who like to run constant scare stories, and then be reassured. However, these same technocrats are hopeless at winning elections, as floating voters like "a bit of colour" as it gives them an excuse to flip. Rishi is therefore dooomed unless the opposition has an even more boring technocrat in charge. So that means another, but this time narrow, Tory win.
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Mick Harper
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'Colour' is just another arrow in the electoral bag of tricks. None of our recent most electorally successful PM's -- Wilson, Thatcher and Blair -- could remotely be described as colourful.
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Mick Harper
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Mick Harper wrote:
an ordinary British government doing ordinary things

Slashing public spending and/or raising taxes being one of them. It seems, in the modern era, that government is largely a matter of bribing the electorate to get elected then paying for the consequences of having done so. Whether it is the same government is less important. Ms Truss did both all on her ownio.
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Mick Harper
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Galvanic events in Brazil. The first time, I learned, that a president has been voted out of office, and also the first one-term president. (I am assuming Bolsonaro will go quietly.) One is always nervous when a leftist candidate wins in Latin America where the local politico-economic apparat can never stand much in the way of giveaways and there are always a great many people to give it away to. On the other hand, one has to support Lulu because of Bollo's appalling treatment of the rain forest.

There was the usual policy of Channel 4 News and Al-Jazeera when the result is uncomfortably close from their point of view: not give the result! If it is unexpectedly wide, the numbers are in 24-point first up. Newsnight did managed to provide one figure (Lula: 50.9%) calling it agonisingly close because they were emphasising that Bolsano wouldn't go quietly. Well, they didn't quite get round to saying it, but that's a 1.8% victory, not particularly close as close two-horse races go. Is there a word in BBC English for 50.1 to 49.9? Super-agonising. Agonisinger. I think it will have to be a nounal phrase. Best adopt the Channel 4/Al-Jazeera policy, Aunty, and stay mum.
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Mick Harper
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When I was young there was a prime minister of Israel called Benjamin Netanyahu. He was a very naughty boy and was had up in court on corruption charges. Oh no he wasn't. Under Israeli law you can't prosecute a sitting prime minister. The watching world waited for his term in office to expire. Oh no it didn't. The Israeli people kept on re-electing him to office.

Then, one day, they didn't and the world leaned forward to hear all about it. Oh no they didn't. By the time the prosecutory authorities had gathered together the evidence they had been collecting all those years and it was time for Benjy to face the music in court, another Israeli election had been called and it looks like he will be prime minister once again. Not that it seems to matter whether he is or he isn't.
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Mick Harper
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This article about Lord Mountbatten's sexual proclivities starts off very ho-hum but gets hairier and hairier. Not quite scarier and scarier but not far off.
https://truecrimedetective.co.uk/lord-louis-mountbatten-the-royal-pedophile-who-was-above-the-law-186edb80e549
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Grant



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I thought the truth is always boring.
I’m always sceptical about accusations of politicians attending children’s homes in some pedo conspiracy. Yes he was perverted and may have liked young men in uniform, but the idea that MI5 were protecting perverts in a children’s home to support their friends in Ulster, come on.
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Mick Harper
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I thought the truth is always boring

You misunderstand its application here. If the truth is that 'Mountbatten was a paedophile' then that is boring in the sense that one per cent or two per cent (or nought point one per cent) of men are paedophiles. So what?

I’m always

Applied Epistemologists are never always anything, that's another principle of ours.

sceptical
Well, yes, I suppose we are always that.

about accusations of politicians attending children’s homes in some pedo conspiracy.

Tell that to the Metropolitan Police. But also the Rochdale police re Cyril Smith.

Yes he was perverted and may have liked young men in uniform

We don't go in for 'perverted', it being a value judgement, but liking young men in uniform is true of most heterosexual women, most homosexual men and wouldn't have been at all noteworthy of someone in Mountbatten's position (apart from having sex with one being punishable by seven years penal servitude).

but the idea that MI5 were protecting perverts in a children’s home to support their friends in Ulster, come on.

The idea is not in itself at all far-fetched. We know that

* children's homes are centres of paedophile activity
* paedophilia is an activity that requires the maintenance of silence by victims via the systematic use of authority
* secret services would be failing in their duty if they did not use any effective channels for intelligence gathering and executive action in war situations
* Ulster was in a war situation.
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Mick Harper
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The Brazilian situation is growing ever more opaque. Bolsonaro has thrown in the towel -- I think he realised the eventual margin was too wide for 'it was fixed' to fly and he has noted from the Trump experience that the state is too powerful to prevent anything other than things taking their course. Lula has grown emboldened and has switched over to a 'we must help the poor at all costs' rhetoric.

When last in power he behaved in a normal left wing way i.e. Brazil did OK, the poor did OK-ish because of it. It is difficult to say but his regime did appear to promote corruption more than ordinarily though this is quite normal because leftist programmes put more power into functionary hands. Whether he was merely spending capital accrued (quite normal for leftist regimes) or not, his eight years of government caused no great harm and probably did some good.

But Bolsonaro has flowed under the bridge since then and with partisan feelings running more than ordinarily high, there is no guarantee that either (1) Lula won't do a Venezuela and/or (2) the military won't do an Argentina/Chile/Brazil etc.
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Mick Harper
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Restraint is to be urged of police during the World Cup regarding behaviour that goes against the cultural norms of Qatar but is commonplace in Europe, according to a series of secret understandings brokered between Fifa and Qatari officials. Guardian

This is quite outrageous. Not because they are 'secret', not because they are 'understandings', not because they needed to be 'brokered' - though all that's bad enough -- but because they're a bleedin' cheek. When I was in Club 18-30 (the age bracket not the rip-off), you weren't allowed to publicly kiss'n'canoodle in Franco's Spain. I don't remember Thomas Cook being in conclave with Mr Fascist about his cultural norms. You knew what they were and you decided whether to go or not.

Fans should be allowed to climb on tables, drape flags over statues and sing loud songs in public without facing interventions by police, according to a summary of the agreements seen by the Guardian.

They're not allowed to do any of these things in Britain. People do them sometimes, and the police either do or do not intervene depending on circumstances but I don't remember the Guardian splashing secret understandings between ACPO and the Chelsea Bootboys.

Essential areas of individual rights are also covered, with LGBTQ+ fans to be allowed to show displays of affection in the street and fly rainbow flags in public places, despite laws that mean homosexuality is illegal in the Gulf state.

This is completely crackers. One thing you can be sure as eggs is that a whole bunch of LGBTQ+ types are going out there with one single intention: to do just enough to outrage even the most on-message policemen (there are no policepersons, as yet) to step in and... er... stop them doing it. I don't know what it will be, I don't know what the police will do about it, but I do know there will banner headlines all round the world telling the world what unenlightened pigs the Qatari pigs are.

Lest We Forget

World Cup held in England: 1966
Homosexuality legalised in England: 1967
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